California · Nonprofit
CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE
CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE (California) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $179,870 to it, the largest being THE TURNIP TOP FOUNDATION ($48,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $159k
- Funders on record
- 16
- Grants received
- $180k
- Net assets
- $100k
What Cloud Forest Institute does
Mission
Cloud Forest Institute is an educational and scientific non profit corporation. CFI encourages bioregional endeavors to re-establish balance within ecological systems by way of environmental education, forest reciprocity and resilient community development
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
During 2025 the Forest Reciprocity Group (FRG) developed a nonprofit business plan to build a FRG Pole Aggregation Depot (FRG PAD) to educate about processing small diameter Douglas fir poles taken from forest restoration projects. FRG is a replicable organizational model advocating for firesafe landscapes and firesafe buildings through reducing forest fire-fuel loads and utilizing the materials from those efforts to build low-carbon embodied buildings. FRG aims to collaborate with forest health crews to restore forests to fire resilient ecosystems, thin small diameter trees to reduce catastrophic fire fuel loads, increase long-range carbon sequestration, and utilize and sell small poles and small-pole milled lumber from forest restoration to build fire-safe housing. The populations who benefit are tribal, rural and low income in need of locally sourced material to build fire-resilient homes. A sub-population within these communities who will benefit from our work are the underemployed of all ages, because the key economic development component FRG seeks to provide is training in marketable skills and viable careers in the areas of fire fuels management, materials transportation…
$54,353 spentof which $58,890 as grants51% of program spendingCultural Bridges Educational Tour to Ecuador. In July 2025, Cloud Forest Institute launched the first-ever Cultural Bridges Program with Bridge Charter Academy (BCA)-a 19-day, place-based learning experience that brought Oregon high school students into the heart of Ecuador's Chocó Andino. This was a powerful experience to build relationships within new communities in new ecosystems. Students took part in daily cultural immersion, field-based science, Spanish language intensives, and community-led service learning in Mindo and nearby communities. They observed bird banding and wildlife at Un Poco del Chocó reserve, learned from Indigenous and local leaders about stewardship and tradition, and joined hands-on projects ranging from habitat restoration to literacy support. Evenings often ended with informal reflection time-storytelling, shared meals, and conversations that helped students process what they were experiencing and who they were becoming. A major strength of the program was the pre-departure online course, which gave students a foundation in Ecuador's ecology, culture, and history. By the time they visited archaeological sites, met with educators, traveled from Quito to…
$52,704 spentof which $55,089 as grants49% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $107,057.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2021 to 2022, from $37k to $139k (+270%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
91% of CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (88% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 5 funders, grant income rose $6k → $19k.
6 of 16 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 24% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE’s funders (the co-funder graph). Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 27% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
35% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 91% · 2018 70% · 2019 38% · 2020 61% · 2021 45% · 2022 58% · 2023 53% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
38% of CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 31% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE draws 81% of its grant income from funders outside California, across 6 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $43k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE has grown faster than half of the 2,433 environment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,433 environment nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
100%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE?
- CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE (California) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $179,870 to it, the largest being THE TURNIP TOP FOUNDATION ($48,000). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE have?
- IRS filings report 16 organizations giving $179,870 in grants to CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE?
- THE TURNIP TOP FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $48,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Cloud Forest Institute →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 16 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing